NA'TURE AND MAN 95 



ploits the free gifts of Nature, and would make her his slave; 

 an exceedingly dangerous experiment. 



She has not abrogated her laws of the great game. Hered- 

 ity has insured that the best attainments of his ancestors shall 

 go to the child, also some of his weaknesses. If a man per- 

 sists in squandering this entailed estate, he, not Nature, is 

 responsible for the loss; and his children may justly curse him. 

 Nature is not to blame, and the law of heredity is on the whole 

 and in the long run beneficent. 



Natural selection for which, as for heredity, Nature is re- 

 sponsible, has certainly resulted in a marvellous line of sure 

 and comparatively steady progress. It sifts and selects un- 

 sparingly and with ever higher standards for survival. It has 

 always demanded the seemingly impossible; it will probably 

 continue to do so. After a period of prolonged prosperity, 

 when survival has been comparatively easy and variation wide, 

 there must always follow a period of the severest selection of 

 a saving remnant. We can only gird our loins to meet the 

 test or go down before it. 



We may well face the fact that, as Huxley has said, " the 

 avoidance of pain and discomfort is no proper object of 

 life." Nature's school and training is not for carpet-knights. 

 We may yet discover that life is not a scheme for the great- 

 est possible ease and luxury, but an adventure in endurance 

 resulting in experience, wisdom, and a well-founded hope, a 

 Marathon race. This doctrine is exceedingly old-fashioned, 

 old as the life which began before the everlasting hills were 

 born. 



The frontiersman of progress does not expect all the lux- 

 uries of an old artificial civilization. His reward is an abound- 

 ing life overflowing with the glow of health, and a youthful 

 civilization close to Nature. On him she smiles. They " get 

 on rarely together," and he falls in love with her in spite 

 of her imperfections and waywardness. She is good enough 

 for him. 



I hold no brief for Nature. She can defend herself. But 

 her highest ways are past finding out, and we cannot search 



